Cliff Bleszinski, formerly of Epic and lead designer for the first three Gears of War games, shared his opinion on why the series was subsequently sold to Microsoft. In essence, Epic believed that they had done everything they could with the games. After the spin-off Gears of War: Judgement (developed with People Can Fly), the series was sold to Microsoft in 2014, after which Microsoft created The Coalition to develop future titles.

"Epic hasn't shipped a game in a while," Bleszinski told IGN (opens in new tab). The [Unreal] engine was doing pretty well, but they were growing and probably needed the revenue, even if they didn't really know what to do about the future of the franchise.

Gears of War has always been an Xbox-only series, and the first installment was not only a great game, but one of the pioneering titles on the HD console that really looked like next-generation stuff. Bleszinski himself left Epic in 2012, a year after "Gears of War 3."

"I honestly think that once [lead designer] Lee Perry, myself, and [producer] Rod Ferguson left, Epic didn't know what to do with the franchise," Bleszinski said. He further believes that the sale helped finance Epic's future business and growth.

"I loved Tim [Sweeney] and Mark [Rein] and we still keep in touch, but when the IP was sold to Microsoft, the only call I got was from Phil Spencer. That was Phil. Phil is, as is often said, a gentleman and a scholar."

Incidentally, the Coalition was led for several years by Rod Ferguson (who moved to Blizzard in 2020 and now oversees "Diablo") and has been developing "Gears of War 4" and "5" since the acquisition. I thought both were pretty decent, although Brzezinski doesn't think they have the "heart" of the older games.

"I should mention about the latest one, at the end of the most recent one, we let the player choose which character would live or die. We committed to Dom dying. We committed to Maria being killed."

I mean, fair enough, but I don't think the series is particularly invested in the storytelling; Maria's death scene in Gears of War 2 is particularly comedic gold, not highly dramatic. My brain goes into a Marcus Fenix voice and says, "They're sinking cities with giant worms!" every so often.

The last mainline entry in the Gears of War series will be the fifth game in 2019, with the (very good) spin-off Gears Tactics coming out in 2020. Microsoft has said nothing about a sixth film, but it is very likely to happen at some point, and the series continues to be of continuing interest in other media. There seems to be a rather bizarre appetite for the awful "Gears" novels, which are still being written (I've read them too, thanks). Epic, on the other hand, has long since moved on and is now just counting the money it made on "Fortnite."